Grinding processing consumes a lot of energy in mineral processing, but it is a low-efficiency process in which only approximately 1% of the total energy is used to reduce the actual particle size. Therefore, an efficient operation in the grinding process increases the competitiveness of the production and is an essential for enhancing the energy efficiency of the entire mineral processing procedure. Therefore, the study will focus on to finding a different method to predicting the particle size distribution of the ball mill, by using the PBM which reflects the actual size distributions of ground product and the DEM which can understand the internal particle behavior in the mill chamber. First, the grinding parameters were calculated by applying size distributions of ground product under various conditions to PBM and the behaviors of the particles inside the ball mill obtained through DEM were analyzed to predict the distribution of the impact energy used for grinding. Next, the relational expression between the grinding rate parameter and the normal force applied to the grinding materials was derived. Using the relational expression derived from this study, it was confirmed that the size distributions in other conditions can be predicted. (C) 2019 The Society of Powder Technology Japan. Published by Elsevier B.V. and The Society of Powder Technology Japan. All rights reserved.